Radical Histories, Radical Futures: Buffalo on the Vanguard of Feminist and Queer Thought

Friday, October 12 | Hayes Hall 403, UB South Campus, 3435 Main Street (NFTA: University)

11:30 am | Coffee and registration
12 pm – 6:30 pm | Symposium

12:00 pm | “The Radical History of Buffalo and UB”

Jennifer Wilson of The Ohio State University (https://slavic.osu.edu/people/wilson.4053) will present her research on the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and anti-capitalist and anti-war politics in the experimental UB Colleges. See her piece about Buffalo in The New Yorker here: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-unlikely-history-of-tolstoy-college.

2:30 pm | Keynote: Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy

Round-table featuring Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, founder of Women’s Studies at UB and co-author of Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, in conversation with founding members of UB’s Women’s College, Bonita Hampton (SUNY-Oswego) and Sherri Darrow (UB). Moderated by Susan Cahn (UB History)

Afternoon panels on “Doing Local Queer & Trans History Now” and “Queer Subcultures After the Butch-Fem Bar Scene” will feature community activists and scholars in conversation, mining the problems of doing archival and activist work and mapping Buffalo’s present and future as an epicenter of grassroots feminist and queer thought.

6:30 pm | Reception – featuring a performance of 1970s protest songs.

Saturday, October 13

12:00 pm – 3:00 pm | The Buffalo-Niagara LGBTQ History Project’s “SHE WALKED HERE” Street Tour | Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, at 1 Lafayette Square

An audio and performance tour commemorating sites of lesbian bar culture in downtown Buffalo, part of a year-long series of community events around the 25th anniversary of the publication of Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, will take visitors through the sites of the bygone lesbian bar scene in downtown Buffalo.

The tour begins at noon at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, at 1 Lafayette Square. The sites on the tour will feature audio recordings of archival material, performances by local queer artists, and acts of collective public memory honoring the working-class butch/femme subcultures that Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis documented.

The route can be driven, walked, or cycled, with some carpool options available.

You can find out more and register for the tour at: https://bit.ly/2NsQQd1

or on the History Project’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BuffaloNiagaraLGBTQhistory/
or by email at bflolgbtqhistory@gmail.com.

3:00 pm – 5:00 pm | Tour of the Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of Western New York | Butler Library on the Buffalo State campus, 1300 Elmwood Avenue

Madeline Davis, founder of the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier, gay-rights crusader, pioneer of lesbian studies and co-author of Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, will host an archive tour of the Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of Western New York, at Butler Library on the Buffalo State campus, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, with a reception to follow in the library. Find out more about this multimedia archive, and view the finding aid, here: https://library.buffalostate.edu/archives/LGBTQ

*Radical Histories, Radical Futures is presented by: the UB Departments of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies, History, and English; the UB Humanities Institute Queer Studies Research Workshop; UB School of Architecture and Planning; the Buffalo-Niagara LGBTQ History Project; and the Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of Western New York*

*All events are free and open to the public*

*Please direct any questions or accessibility concerns to cmvarnad@buffalo.edu*